7 Tips for Improving Marriage
Based on research by John Gottman
John Gutman is the founder of an educational and research institute in the field of research and predicting the success of couples’ marital relationship. 40 years of continuous effort and research in the field of marriage stability on more than 3000 couples has made him win hundreds of awards. In his institution, he tried to identify and record the factors that cause marital dissatisfaction and as a result, separation .
Dr. Gutman invites couples to an apartment equipped with a one-way mirror, which is called a love laboratory, and carefully examines their relationships and at the end predicts the stability of the relationship or lack of it with high precision .
According to Gutman, the most destructive behaviors of couples are :
1- Criticism: Criticism instead of complaining means that the character traits of the partner are questioned .
2- Humiliation: Expressing expressions that insinuate the superiority of the speaker over the listener is one of the most important factors in destroying the marital relationship, and such conversations should be removed from couples’ conversations with precise scientific methods. Example: You are a fool !
3-Self-defense: defending oneself with anger or expressing expressions that indicate innocence. or attacks in conversation that are made to defend oneself. For example: “I am not to blame for arriving late, but you !”
4- Dodging: couples do not receive the signs they expect in the conversation. For example, a person expects a certain answer from his partner at the end of a conversation, but does not receive the appropriate feedback .
7 important methods in improving marital relations based on the studies and research of Dr. Gutman are :
Asking for help ahead of time: Most couples seek help after six years of marriage to solve their communication problems. (Half of marriages end under 7 years)
Self-correction: Happy couples avoid expressing any critical thoughts while discussing sensitive topics. Instead, they try to recognize their faults and fix them .
Calm start: the beginning of most arguments between couples is intensified due to critical and humiliating labels of one of the parties. An effective alternative is to resolve issues calmly without any blame .
Ability to be influenced: In marriage studies, a relationship is successful in which the husband has the ability to accept and be influenced. When the woman says, “Do you have any plans for the weekend?” “I have invited my family and I need your help,” the wife replies, “I have set my schedule and I cannot change it.” As you can guess, this couple is in a shaky relationship. Research has shown that men are not as effective as women and this causes problems in relationships .
Having high standard relationships: Most of the happy and successful couples are those who reject any destructive behavior from the opposite side from the beginning of the marriage (not after several years). A low tolerance threshold for bad and unpleasant behavior at the beginning of a relationship will make the relationship successful in the future .
Learning the skill of modification and leaving the argument in time: Happy couples know how to leave the argument or modify the situation in such a way as to avoid further arguments. The coping skills include: using humor, expressing empathy (I understand you), stating a common problem (we will overcome this problem together), being supportive, appreciative. When the argument starts, give yourself a break for 20 minutes to calm down, then continue the topic .
Positivity: Happy couples use positive and negative sentences about each other at a ratio of 5 to 1 while discussing problems. For example, “we had a lot of happy moments with each other” instead of “we were never happy”. Try to create a cloud of positive thoughts in front of your reservoir of negative emotions .
Source: Gutman Institute’s official site [1]
Translated by Azadeh Rezazadeh
Consultant
